The Month of The Speck

(This one has lots of text, which is a change from the previous photo-heavy posts, but I think it's fairly interesting and worth documenting, so read on if you like!  I'm sure some will be interested.)

Now that the babymoon is all said and done and documented, the time has come to give a little update on the preparations for the imminent arrival of The Speck.  That's right, the month of May is well upon us, and that means that by the time the month is up, we will have a little one finally joining us on the outside.  As of this week (week 37 [almost last week by now, since that's how long this blogpost has been sitting waiting to be posted]) he's considered full-term, which means he could technically come any day!  We're not really expecting him for another week or two at least, but we're really hoping for before the 20th, right, Wife?  *fistpump*  Our big plan of going to Star Trek next week and its subsequent inducement of labor is still the hope, so we'll see how that goes.  In the meantime, I was thinking that maybe we haven't been documenting our preparations that thoroughly, and certainly not as thoroughly as many people do (though some perhaps document a little TOO thoroughly), so here's a little update of what's been going on.  The Wife has been posting some of her own great preparations and projects (here, here, here, here and here), but here are a few more general ones:

• We're up to weekly appointments at the lady doctor (who is usually a man), which is ever so conveniently located immediately across the street from us (honestly, we walk ten yards and we're at the building).  Our insurance covers this clinic, so that's where we've been going, which means they have several doctors, and we sometimes see a different one every week, and whichever one is on call when we go into labor is the one who will deliver The Speck.  Some people might prefer having the same doctor throughout the process, but we're the type that don't mind and in-and-out kind of visit with whatever doctor happens to be there, as long as they're all qualified and appropriate, of course, which they all have (mostly) been so far.  We're just not very high maintenance as long as people know what they're doing, and the insurance coverage is pretty darn good.  Also, they did a great job of removing The Wife's tennis ball, so we have plenty of confidence in them.

• Speaking of the tennis ball incident and previous struggles with fertility, there don't seem to have been any issues with that (*knocks on wood*), for which we are very grateful.  It's crazy how you try and try and there are issues and complications, and then when it finally happened, it really did just that and has been going along apparently without a hitch.

• A couple of months ago we signed up for and attended a series of classes offered at the local hospital, which were somewhat interesting and informative, and mostly just helped us feel better prepared in general (though that Miracle of Life video... oh my).  Julie was... glad to be a little more prepared for the whole nursing scene too.  It's funny to think that pretty much everyone in that class by now has a little baby on the outside, since most people were further along than we were when we went to it.

• We've been slowly accumulating baby things over the months, and we're just about finished checking things off our list!  We figured it would be easier to buy things piecemeal as we go along rather than buying everything at once at the very end, which would be just crazy and expensive to do all at the same time.  So we just picked up a thing or two whenever we did our weekly grocery shopping, also ordering the big things every week or two online (crib, carseat, play yard, stroller...), and then gradually putting them together as the time draws near.  (We didn't want to buy them all too early, since then they would just be sitting there in boxes for all that time anyway.)  The nesting instinct has kicked in, our house is getting cleaned and sorted out, and as of now the nursery is pretty much assembled (and appropriately separated from the office, though they share the same room), and it's looking great!  I can't wait to see a snuggly little swaddled bundle in that crib.

In there.

• We also have plenty of clothes from sisters and friends and shower gifts and various other places, so that we've hardly had to buy any baby clothes at all!  (Thanks so much, sisters and friends!!!)  It's so nice to have plenty of things for him to wear at various ages, and we're definitely not 2 kewl for hand-me-downs.  The closet and dresser are in place and organized, the diapers and wipey-dipes are on hand, and there's also a nice little children's library building up.  Speaking of all this, my sisters and mom threw a really nice shower, and many friends and family were so kind as to attend.

Invitation art courtesy of Elise.  Love iiiit.  It's hanging on the bulletin board above my desk.

• We've been keeping track of things we need to do, like find a pediatrician and pre-register for labor & delivery, and contact the insurance and work for the necessary paperwork for family leave and such.  Julie hopes every day that it will be The Day so that she won't have to go to work anymore (I tell her just to go as much as she feels like or feels able to do, we don't want her overdoing it!), and I look forward to my two weeks paid leave myself (I could technically take several weeks longer, but it's unpaid, and I do have plenty of vacation days, so we'll see what happens and how things are going).

•  Julie has big plans to make some freezer meals for the crock pot and such, so we'll have plenty of ready-made and delicious things to eat when we don't have a lot of time to make something fresh and new, though we're also really looking forward to her mom coming to visit and my mom visiting too, and both of them making us delicious foods and treats (right, moms?!?).

• We have plenty of movies stored up on our DVR and Netflix TV shows to catch up on, so if (when) we're up late nights and spending a lot of time at home we'll have plenty to occupy us while we're trying to keep a newborn occupied and happy and sleeping when he should be.

• As far as the pregnancy itself, I have come to the conclusion that my dear wife is a pretty great pregnant lady.  She's a good sport and she's been active and even when she's grumpy or upset she tries not to let it get to her too much.  She has NO trouble sleeping (for real, she could probably sleep ten hours straight every night if she didn't have things to do each morning, and which she definitely does NOT take for granted), and after the first trimester [correction:  the first 20 weeks] she hasn't felt that sick (there's this short period every morning around 10 or 11 where she feels a little gross, but it always passes pretty quickly).  We've heard so many horror stories, and also dream situations, and so far she seems to me at least a little better than average, which is a great blessing to her, me AND The Speck.  She's had some of the usual symptoms and side-effects (no crazy cravings in the middle of the night though... remember what I said about sleeping great?  Though she still does like a few things to eat especially, like cheeeeese, though that's nothing really new), though I myself have been breaking out, putting on a few extra pounds, being unusually emotionally sensitive, feeling especially awkward and clumsy, having disturbing dreams and feeling really tired.  Sympathy symptoms?  I'm a believer.   Julie has been checking out and reading and studying from many books about various methods of delivery and rearing young ones, and it's been good to take bits and pieces from here and there and thinking of how we can adapt them to our own parenting ideas and such (though of course we have NOTHING to learn about parenting, since we already know it all and we will be PERFECT parents!  Aren't all first-timers perfect parents??).

• A lot of people have been naturally wondering about his name.  All we can say right now is that we have a few ideas and have narrowed it down considerably, but we're not ready to reveal our idea(s) yet.  Don't worry, in just a few weeks it will all be clear, and don't worry, we're not going to name him something ridiculous like Zerrick or Tomaquino or Pilot Inspektor or Google or Holy Tnetennba or anything with an apostrophe (yes, these are all true names I have found in a brief scouring of the interwebs for unfortunate infant nomenclature [except for Tomaquino, I made that one up, and Tnettenba, which Moss made up]...  people... don't be ridiculous).  Apparently, occasionally some people don't decide on a name before leaving the hospital, so the nurses write "Male" or "Female" on the paperwork as the first name, and some go back and change, but I guess several thousands don't... Why.

• As for The Infamous Speck himself, he's reportedly doing great, moving around a lot and keeping his mum on her toes (more like, keeping his mum sitting back with her feet up) and his dad on his too (gladly running about to respond to mum's every whim and need).  He's about 6.5 pounds now, and his heartbeat always sounds nice and strong, and he doesn't seem to be causing many contractions, real or otherwise, so who knows what that could mean, if anything at all?  It's still WAY exciting to me to feel his little movements and jabs, and it's great to know he's moving about plenty.  Sometimes I sing to him and sometimes Julie pokes him back when he pokes her, but often we just watch as he stretches his boundaries and makes her tummy nice and lopsided.  It's still amazing to me that there's this child inside of there just finishing up his cooking so he can join us in the outside world in just a few weeks.

My wife is not prego (that's spaghetti sauce), and she's not preggers (that's just stupid), but she is a beautiful and radiant pregnant girl with active, squirmy offspring inside of her, and she's doing a great job of creating the physical body for this human that our Creator has seen fit to bestow upon us.  I can't wait to take a more active and personal role as this child's daddy-o.  Keep going by, May!  And come see us soon, Speck!  Just a couple more weeks and you can join us out here.  It's a scary place sometimes, but I promise we'll take care of you.

Thing the Second: Birthday

Just after we moved, we celebrated The Wife's birthday!  She very much enjoyed turning 23*.  Again, she wrote about this over at her blog too, which you can read here, but I wanted to document it a little at least too.

So Julie had a birthday!  And it was fun, despite all of my apparently natural inability to throw any kind of successful party.  After a completely and miserably failed attempt at getting a bunch of friends and family to join us for a viewing of The Avengers after we finished moving (Her similar plan was such an awesome post-birthday surprise for me, I thought it would be a fun bit of turnabout, and even though it was a couple weeks early for her actual birthday, think of how big a surprise it would have been!  Alas, 'twasn't meant to be), we thought we would end up just spending her actual birthday alone together, as it were.  This kind of defeat always requires a little bit of recovery time, but then after we had settled in and her actual birthday approached, we decided to risk another failure and throw a sort of birthday/housewarming event.  So we did!  And it turned out to be a success!  Although the pictures we ended up taking don't indicate such, there were quite a few people present, and we were so glad to have some company to introduce to our new place, and to have a bunch of people with whom to share Julie's latest confectionary masterpiece:

WHAT.

Hi, Halle!  Thanks for representing the guests present at this event.

Let the record show that I did offer to make her birthday cake for her, but as she has grown rather fond of (not to mention quite adept at) making cakes, she wanted to take the opportunity to try a recent discovery, the epic Chocolate Quake Cake.

As for the birthday girl and the actual day itself, I tried my hardest to lavish her with gifts and cash prizes throughout the day, but unfortunately, due in part to her birthday falling on a Sunday, and due in larger part to my own procrastination, but due in (maybe) largest part to Amazon's lackadaisical attitude toward shipping my items, her party was spread out over a few days and even a week.  It didn't help that she didn't have much clear idea what she wanted for her birthday this year, which I could understand.  Sometimes it's just hard to know what you want!  But I tried to be creative, and I even tried to string my present ideas together with some kind of theme like The Wife did for mine in March, and it ended up being, um, things that are rectangular.  Or something.  HA!  Works for me.  A few of them were these:

This is one I came up with on my own!  It was even available in pink.  I'm so glad she liked it, and now doing her Pilates will be much more comfy.

This is something she hinted at strongly a few weeks earlier, and then I think she kind of forgot about it.  Score another surprise for me!

So wonderful!  This came as a set with a voucher for a pre-ordered copy of the DVD as well, since for some hideous reason it doesn't come out until the end of June.  CDs are only slightly rectangular (in cases at least).

In the end, she seemed to have a nice birthday, and I vowed to plan a little more carefully for parties and presents and such in the future.  And then we also took a fun trip to cap off the birthday weekend/week, which is coming up here on the blog as the next Thing.  Happy birthday, Wife!


* or something

Doctors and Hospitals and Tennis Balls: A Husband's Perspective

I have an epic Valentine's Day post about ready to go, but in the spirit of doing things chronologically, I wanted to do a quick post about The Wife's recent visits to see the doctor from my point of view.  I don't need to give a lot of details here, since she has done such a good job of chronicling her adventures over at her blog, but I still wanted to give a little info and some links to her posts for people who are interested and might not regularly visit Hinkypunk Station (though of course you all should... she is funny and clever and witty).  I don't think this will be TMI or anything, but just be aware.

First, a story:  One day it was Christmas 2011.  In the earliest morning my beloved wife gave me my first Christmas present--the news that we were finally expecting our firstborn.  Most of the dozen or so people who read this blog are probably aware by now that we've been hoping to add a small humanoid to our little family for a while, so this was really exciting news.  She was just a few weeks along, so we didn't spread the word right away (it was the hardest secret to keep during the Christmas festivities, believe you me), but things took a troubling turn just a few days later when certain curious bodily signs and/or symptoms led us to visit the doctor.  To make a long story (involving several hospitals, a very long ER visit --a word to ER doctors:  DON'T say something like, "There's some kind of big mass here..." and then never address it again--and finally seeing a good specialist, which Julie has documented much more fully here and here), it was discovered that we lost the poor wee thing, but this led to a few tests and getting some real information.  As it turned out, what Julie was carrying, as it were, and had been for some years, was a benign mass the size of a tennis ball on her uterus (it was attached to the outside by a stalk, which leads to it being termed a "pedunculated fibroid," which is like the funniest medical term ever).  It wasn't extremely serious, just a mass of tissue, especially since she didn't even know it was there (some people feel extreme pain from them), but it could cause problems with future pregnancies and life in general, so a few weeks later out it went (which Julie has documented here).  It was a fairly non-invasive surgery due to interesting and exciting technology described in the links above, and she was left with just a few little incisions on her tummy.  I really wanted to be present for the procedure, I was like, come on, I promise I won't get in the way, I'll just stand in the corner quietly and watch!  I even (later) illustrated it to get my point across:

But I guess that's just not how things are done. While she was in recovery Doc came out and gave me the scoop, including showing me high-quality, super-sharp pictures of my wife's insides.  I mean, how many people get to see that?  It was fascinating.  He showed me her appendix and her fibroid and her many other innards, and explained to me what he did and what was removed and how it all went (that is, successfully).  He also indicated that she has endometriosis and that they removed an endometreoma from one of her ovaries, which might have had something to do with our difficulty conceiving for these past many many months.  So that was taken care of too, and when it was all said and done she spent a couple of hours looking like this:

Awwwww.

Julie was a champ in surgery, especially for a rookie, and it was my great pleasure to wait on her hand and foot until she was feeling better, and beyond of course.  Before too long we went home and recovery continued.

Fast-forward a few weeks, and a few days ago we had our follow-up appointment with Doc, where he showed Julie the pictures I saw (which she was really hoping to see), and checked her incisions to make sure they were healing well and right (they were), and where he explained again the things he told me while she was recouping.  He gave us some options for managing the endometriosis and assured Julie that biologically and reproductively she's still young and has many child-bearing years ahead of her, should she desire such, and was particularly encouraging when we reminded him that she had in fact been pregnant before the surgery.  Anyway, there's a lot more to it all, but that's the gist, and Julie wrote about it here, including an artist's rendering of what has been dubbed the Tennis Ball, since (alas!) we didn't get copies of the pictures to take home.  In the end it was a good visit, and we know our options going forward.  We are of course sad to have lost our first positive pregnancy, but we have high hopes for the future, and we're glad to have resolved some of these issues about which we wouldn't even have known otherwise.  Like our neighbor said, it's like when you get glasses after all your life and only then realize that you weren't able to see very clearly.

This has been a heckuva way to start the new year, but we have come a long way and are determined to make the rest of 2012 better than the first part of it!  Mostly at the moment my biggest concern is with the obvious miscommunication between hospitals and billing and insurance people, since they keep sending us odd statements that don't make much sense.  Here's a tip, hospital folks:  Don't send the bill until the insurance has had a chance to process and figure out their portion, and THEN send the final statement and I'll be glad to pay it.  Having said that, I am ever so grateful for our excellent insurance and our having added Julie to it just last fall.

One Week Later

It's been a week since the last Great Harry-thon came to a close (and by close, I mean close).  Throughout this week we have seen the grand finale three times--once in the double feature/midnight showing with our dear friends Lacie and Leland, once on Saturday night with Mike, and once on Wednesday night for Julie's work party (that means it was free!) with our London friends Caity and Melissa.  We always joke with people who were unable to join our opening day festivities that it probably wouldn't be very hard to persuade us to see it again if they want to go at a later date, so we might just see it a couple more times in the theater (and when it comes to the dollar theater??  Forget about it!).

So what did I think?  I'll tell you what I think!  Well, you can probably guess what I think, and you would probably be right.

I loved it.

I don't know if I'm ready to give it my stamp of "favorite," but it comes pretty close.  Although it's the shortest of the films, which makes sense as it covers about 250 pages of text, I was amazed at how it filled the time, since it basically consisted of two major events (though they were pretty major).  The action was intense and the characters and relationships were at their very best.  Dan, Rupert and Emma have sure come a long way in the acting department, though I always thought they played their characters well, and by now I can't possibly imagine anyone else as Harry, Ron and Hermione.  I almost cared about Snape, and Alan Rickman finally had his chance to actually do a little acting (he's a fine Snape, I guess, though he doesn't really nail the nastiness that Snape has in the books, and his portrayal has always been restrained and a little bit theatrical).  The score was fantastic, it had the right blend of end-of-the-wizarding-world intensity and real emotion, and expertly incorporated some perfectly-placed key themes from the very first John Williams scores to great effect--there were a couple of moments when I gasped and gripped Julie's arm when an incredibly familiar theme started to play.

The midnight experience was fun, and I'm glad we did it, not to mention the excitement of the double feature and starting the second half almost immediately after the first (which I so desperately wanted to do last November when Part 1 was released), and though there were some people who were obviously dragged there and didn't quite "get" the excitement of a midnight showing, it was really awesome.  As a side note, I'm really glad we bought tickets early enough to get them right here in Provo so we wouldn't have to drive home through construction and freeway closures at three in the morning... We were dressed in full Gryffindor attire (which I admit is more conducive to a fall/winter movie release), and the hundreds of fans waiting in the lobby and the theater were duly impressed, and some even asked to take pictures with or of us.  We were like celebrities!  One day we will have a wee tot and draw a scar on his forehead and go as James, Lily and Harry.  I mean, I have heard more than once already that I kind of resemble James in the movies, which I'll totally accept.

She's so excited!

The Wife stopped to say a quick hello to Captain America.  See you next week!

This is a very small indication of the crowds.  This is the line for snacks and cheeses.

Rushing to finish re-reading the Epilogue between Part 1 and Part 2.

Us!  Note the Cherry Coke in the cupholder.  We were taking precautions in order to be alert all through the night.

The Lius!

Now that's what I like to see.  A theater showing Harry Potter all day.

Overall I was so pleased to see just how much they included in this movie, and the embellishments to the ending didn't bother me at all.  That Fiendfyre scene is really intense (just sayin') and I thought it was a fitting final battle between Harry and Voldemort, with some very interesting themes being brought full-circle.  Yes, I did laugh, gasp and smile almost the whole time, and yes, I did get kind of misty at certain parts (and some of them were really unexpected parts!).  The only gripe I have, and it is minor, is that this doesn't seem to have a fully fleshed-out story as a film on its own.  As the second half of one really long film based on the last Harry Potter book, it is fanTAStic, and I like to think of the two movies as one long movie anyway.  I think it's better that way, and the story and characters round out better.  My annoyance with the splitting of the book into two parts is well-documented, and the trend it seems to have started (NO Twilight book can or should be split into two parts, period.  Especially not the last one.  I just have no idea how they're going to make that into two movies that don't induce the viewer into a coma.), and I still think it would have been awesome to have one super-long finale event, but if it means that I get both of these awesome movies, I'll take it.  I wonder if I'll ever be able to just watch one of the movies once Part 2 is on DVD...  So far I'm already finding it difficult to just listen to the second part of the soundtracks.

 

Anyway, it was wonderful, and it's been a really awesome trip from start to finish.  It's been ten years since the first movie was released, and the memories of driving with Elise up to Jordan Landing are as fresh in my mind as the day they happened.  The traditions have changed, and I have luckily found a spouse that is as enamored of The Boy Who Lived as I am (at LEAST as much as I am), so she understands and indulges (and encourages and fuels!) the hype and excitement I feel as each Harry Potter Day, of which there are now very very few remaining, draws closer.  I do have mixed feelings about it all being over at least, but I don't feel all tragic and woeful and "the end of an era means the end of my life and childhood and happiness!" like some of the fans are feeling, I feel like it's been an amazing journey, and though I've had my quibbles with some of the movies, I'm a very grateful fan.  I didn't "grow up" with the books or movies, like my younger sister and fellow super-fan did, but I still followed them and came to feel like the characters were really good friends.  It does feel like the end of something big, but I like to think of it as Alan Rickman is quoted to have said in some premiere interviews:  "I think things like this are meant to end, and you should not miss it--you should just be happy that it ends well."  Will there ever be anything like Harry Potter again?  I seriously doubt it.  It's an incredible phenomenon that has meant so much to so many people on such real and personal levels, and I can't see anything else ever coming close to that, but that just makes me glad that I found it when I did and was able to take part in and enjoy all the amazing hype and waiting (and waiting and waiting...) for the newest book or movie.  I don't even know what I'll have to look forward to so eagerly in the theaters now...  OhwaityesIdoit'sTheHobbitofcourse.

Also, about the Epilogue?  I like it.  The make-up wasn't entirely convincing (Ron and Hermione hardly looked older at all), but when you see the images floating around the internet of how they looked the first time they filmed that scene (19 years later?  More like 39 years later!  This first attempt was scrapped, leading almost to cutting the Epilogue scene entirely), you realize that it's really pretty good.  It was so great to hear that familiar music and see Harry sending his own kids off to Hogwarts, coming full-circle and bringing back memories of his own first journey on the Hogwarts Express, almost as if it happened to each of us.  It's so weird that there's a real feeling of personal nostalgia involved, but there it is.  It was also kind of symbolic of the feeling I (and we as fans) will have one day when I put the first book in the hands of my own kids and introduce them to the experience of discovering the world of Harry and Co.  Hopefully they'll be interested in the books before the movies, I would love for them to have the same experience I had of discovering the world in the words before seeing them brought to life so expertly on the screen.

HP7.2 Take 2!

This time I'm reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

 

 

So yeah, this is a little gooey, not unlike when I blogged about finally reading the last book, but it's been a huge part of my life for more than a decade, influencing my art, my musical and cinematic taste, and it was even a huge factor in the development of my relationship with my dear sister and of course, the series of very fortunate events that led me to meeting and marrying my moste splendid wife.  Thanks for everything, Harry.  Your story has been told, but you're not really out of the picture.

A message to people who still haven't seen this movie, or to those who (SOMEhow) haven't seen the other ones, or, even more amazingly, haven't read the books:  SEE IT.  READ THEM.  Then come back and thank me. :)

Happy Birthday, Wife!

A month ago we celebrated The Wife's, erm, 21st-ish* birthday.  I did my very best to spoil her , especially after she made my own birthday so very exciting this year (if I may, I did quite deliver in the presents and surprises-throughout-the-day departments this year!).  She has blogged about it all herself on her blog, but I wanted to show some love on here too.

The festivities started with a delightful dinner, and Bombay House won the birthday girl's vote this year.  We have been more or less loving Indian food lately (probably ever since we so enjoyed having it for our anniversary in Windermere last summer), and although we always think it might be a little overpriced here, it was so delicious.

This is the before picture.  To the right are a couple of the birthday surprises -- A beloved Brontë book set!

This is the after.  NBD.

And then we headed over to the theater to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Anyone who knows The Wife knows that she's a huge and avid fan of the movies (yes, even the second and third one, ha ha), and although she was hesitant about the direction the fourth seemed to be going, she was pretty excited it came out on her birthday.  Likewise, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a very big fan of the movies, but we watched them all in preparation for the new one, and I liked them a little better.  I think it has to do with the company with which you watch them.  Anyway, it was time for the big movie event, and we even sat in line for a few minutes:

Sorry, sweetie, no Will in this one.  At least your socks can represent.

Unfortunately it wasn't a huge hit with her, but we're thinking that she might warm to it a little more after another viewing.  I don't want to write a lengthy review, but in brief I will say:  Too much Jack acting self-aware that he was Jack, if you know what I mean, no chemistry between Jack and Angelica, Blackbeard wasn't nearly threatening enough, some of the music cues were ripped directly from the previous scores, the mythology was glossed over and the side stories seemed really irrelevant.  And then of course the multiple shameless loose ends and openings for sequel opportunities seemed kind of contrived and opportunistic.  So yes, maybe we'll like it a little better the second time around, ha ha.

A few days later we met with a bunch of kith and kin to have our biannual trip to Tucanos to make use of their two-for-one birthday coupon.  We sometimes wish there were a few more months in between our birthdays so we could spread out our Tucanos visits, but we always love it there.

So cute.

I know Leland looks kind of, um, vacant here, but Lacie makes up for it, yes?

We had three birthday girls in our group...

...So of course the wait staff had to come sing to them!

They didn't have a problem getting into the spirit of things.

They totally didn't bring a treat when we went for my birthday in March, but they made up for it this time.

It was a great time, and it was sad that Elise was Single Rider this time around, but Jeff was there in spirit, as he will probably always be when we eat at Tucanos.

Later that day we met up to eventually create the epic video recently posted (you can see it here).  Julie had wanted to make her own birthday cake.  I promise I offered to make it for her, but she really wanted to try her hand at Red Velvet Cake.  In her post she outlines how it didn't quite work out as planned, and though I had no problem eating it anyway, it did make a quite scrumptious trifle:

So after we made our amazing music video, since we hadn't brought a birthday cake as planned, our friends insisted that we had to have some kind of celebration anyway.  After all, Julie deserved a birthday cake at this sort-of-birthday party, right?  So off to Walmart we went, and after looking at a few options, the chocolate mousse cake was the one that had to be the obvious choice.

For the record, she tried the Red Velvet Cake again last week and it was picture perfect:

I also had (am still having) no problem eating this one. :D

Happy birthday, Wife!  I hope I made it magical and splendid!

* She really turned 28.  Own it, Wife!  28 was a great year for me!

Florida: I Want To Go Back Already (Part I)

Okay everyone, you can put your knitting away for now.  It's been two weeks since we returned home, and I'm finally ready to give a little trip report.  This started out as one blogpost over a week ago, but then it turned out to be, WOW, way too long, so I have decided to split it up for easier digestion (Blogger is having major issues...  maybe it doesn't like it when you have huge posts with dozens of pictures).  This is Part I: Walt Disney World.

This excursion was a long time in the planning, though most of it was wishful thinking, so I'm so glad it finally happened.  While I was looking for deals I decided to check out a free quote from a travel agency that sponsors one of the podcasts I listen to regularly, and it turned out their services were free, and most useful!  (Thanks, Julie!  Not Wife Julie, but Travel Agent Julie.)  We booked through them and had a lot of nice little perks, including a free giftcard.

It turns out to have been a pretty good week to visit.  The first few days especially were fairly uncrowded (not to mention how, due to how very big WDW is, some areas are virtually empty), and we never waited in line for longer than 20-30 minutes (and sometimes we stood in line on purpose to experience some of the new and awesome interactive queue elements).  The weather was hot, but not miserably hot like it will be in just a couple of weeks.  I was determined not to feel ill this trip, as has been my habit at theme parks of late, so I made sure to take some Dramamine.  We had six whole days at Disney, so we had plenty of time to do everything we wanted to do, some of them multiple times.  We basically went to two parks each day, and worked with the closing times, some of which were pretty early (grad night--grrr).  When we first walked through the parks, I had the strangest feeling, like a blend of nostalgia and total unfamiliarity.  It's been SO long, and I've been to Disneyland so many times since then, it felt almost like some kind of forgotten dream or something.  It didn't take long to get reacquainted with things though, and it was really fun to compare the rides there to their counterparts at Disneyland (of which some are actually better at the west coast parks, and not just according to us, but to general fan consensus).  There was so much to do, but we made great use of our six days!  After our early flight to Orlando, we caught the Magical Express and arrived at our resort with no problems.

Little Wife, so sleepy after the long flight(s).

There was someone writing inspirational messages in the sky for a few days.  We think he might have had some of the words backwards, but his heart was in the right place.

After a nice visit to Downtown Disney, eating at Planet Hollywood (with a coupon we received for booking through our travel agent) and shopping at some of the fun, unique shops there, we tried to get some sleep.  I felt like such a child, I had a hard time sleeping, I was just so excited.

Next year's Christmas card??

Buddies at the Lego store.

Our first four days at Disney were really eventful.  I think I'll just separate things by park to make it easier to report:

Magic Kingdom!

• It seemed only natural to start with the park that started it all down in Orlando, and it helped ease Julie into the sometimes overwhelming WDW experience with something a little more familiar.  I was SO excited on that shuttle turning the corner and seeing Cinderella Castle peeking above the trees.

A li'l tear for Main Street and Cinderella Castle.

No tears this time!  XD

A new Main Street friend for Elise.  He doesn't even need to be named.  He's already called Casey.

They knew Julie was coming to visit so they shipped the hub Dumbo statue to Orlando.

I guess this is Phillip, since he's in Frontierland, but we kept trying to decide if he should be a new character altogether.

What up, Charles?

Tradish.

Good is good, bad is bad.

"Oh Zurg, nothing will keep us apart!" She has this thing for the bad boys.

"Welcome to my kitchen.  Would you like some lunch?"

I am going to have a hat like this one day, you just mark my words.

Down for fire damage, never to open in this incarnation again.  Interpret my thumbs-down sentiment as you will.

• We rode a ton of rides!  We're both so used to the Disneyland counterparts, but it was fun to compare the rides that are in both parks (most of the differences were in the details, but sometimes they were huge, like the queue areas being so much bigger and more covered in the Florida versions, wider walkways and more FastPass options).  Pirates, Splash, Big Thunder, Space, Jungle Cruise, it's a small world, the tour around the park on the train, and a plethora of dark rides (including the soon-to-be-extinct Snow White's Scary Adventures and Dumbo).  There were a lot of attractions unique to Magic Kingdom that I was excited to show Julie too--Stitch's Great Escape (once called Extra-Terrorestrial Alien Encounter), the Peoplemover, the Carousel of Progress, the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, the new Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, and the Country Bear Jamboree and Mickey's PhilharMagic (which opened VERY soon after I left the College Program, and which I was so excited to finally see).  We had plenty of days to take our time and make sure we saw everything we could!  We saw the fireworks show at the castle of course, and it was as beautiful as you would surely expect Disney fireworks to be.

I laid the rose on his grave.  (Just kidding, the Cast Members did it, which they do every day.)

• I should also note that we were able to see a good deal of the construction on next year's exciting and major Fantasyland renovation, including the Beast's castle peeking up over the walls.  It will be amaaaaziiiing.

• We met up with Cami and Jake and their kids for a few hours one evening, which was really fun.

We hadn't planned to coordinate our Disney trips (they were just there for a day or so before boarding their Disney cruise--is it wrong of me to feel jealous of one Disney vacation while I'm on one myself?...), but it worked out great!  It was really fun to ride some of the rides with the kids, and with Cami, even though everyone else outright refused to go on Splash Mountain with us three.  Tsk!

We are kissing and OMGoodness, Cami is behind us totally grossed out!  HA HA.

Splash Mountain?  Can't be bothered.

We had plenty of time with Mickey and Minnie because there was no one else in the queue.

It was kind of hard to interpret what they wanted to do for the pictures since the didn't speak, but we figured it out.  It was like posing with mimes

Please ignore my double glasses look.  I tried to remember to take off one or the other for pictures, but sometimes I still forgot.

Epcot!

•  There are so many cool things at Epcot.  We were there during the Flower and Garden Festival, so we saw a lot of themed topiaries and butterfly gardens and sand sculptures and garden displays.
•  The Seas and The Land pavilions are areas I've never really explored, so it was fun to go there and see fish (real and animated) and creatures and the plants growing in the greenhouses (and also to be thoroughly chastised for being wasteful, toxic, polluting humans by Simba in a delightful little propaganda film).

Julie and Anchor are seeing eye-to-eye.

I get it, Simba, men are the polluting scum of the earth.  Have a nice day.

•  The World Showcase!  It's awesome!  We tried foods from a few of the countries and rode the few rides (Maeeelstrooooom...) and watched the few shows they have, but mostly it was fun to walk around and feel a little bit like we were traveling the world.

Fish & chips in the UK!

A giant troll in Norway!

Resting our feet before watching the China Circle-Vision show.

Rapunzel's tower near Germany (just because).  You can hear her sing and her hair is apparently supposed to glow, but I think it was unplugged so it didn't work.

Italian pizza!  In Italy!  Word is they import water from Italy to make the dough so it's super-authentic.

Jasmine noticed us walking by with our camera and showed Aladdin, and they totally posed for us so we wouldn't have to stand in the long line, and then that lame lady was like, "I think I'm going to be a super tacky tourist and feel this hair!  Wow, it feels like a wig or something!" Otherwise a really nice picture.

Welcome to Agrabah.

I have a hat like this at home.  But this is a Disney Morocco hat.

"Lookee here, men!  A street mouse!"

Pastries in France!  This is the Napoleon.  Can I have another one?  Right now?

This was a delicious strawberry tart.

OMGOMGOMGOMG, Davy Jones!!!!!  We briefly thought about coming back to see him, but then we weren't around.  It turns out there was quite a crowd waiting, some people came hours and hours early.  We figured we can always just watch The Brady Bunch Movie if we get a hankering for some Davy Jones, as almost no one ever does.

Japan!

I really really wanted a funnel cake and we finally bought one at the American pavilion.

They have a new Kim Possible activity where they give you a "Kimmunicator" cell phone that leads you on a top-secret mission in one of the countries, which includes interactive elements that happen only when you're in the right spot and following instructions correctly.  It was super cool.

"Call me, beep me if you wanna reach me."

• We did the cool rides too like Mission Space (which is new since I was there, and which I was glad they had a "mild" version of, which doesn't spin) and Test Track.  We skipped Soarin', because it's exactly the same as it is in California (same movie and everything), and because the line was always too long.  It would be cool if they had a Florida version (and isn't it sort of expected?).  Maybe someday!

That girl on the left was way into it.  Single Rider, but she didn't seem to mind.  Also, SO lame that they put words up on the pictures now.  They flash away, but then you have to time for photo just right.

 • IllumiNations!!!  It's one of my favorite nighttime shows and it is just as awesome as I remember it.  It was some kind of dream come true to stand next to the World Showcase Lagoon in Italy and watch the fireworks and hear that glorious music with my splendid wife in my arms.

Disney's Hollywood Studios!

I had been having serious withdrawals from this hat for the last several months.

• My old alma mater!  It was really crazy to walk through there and remember the tiniest details about the layout and the backstage passageways and the Cast Member Only areas and things that happened on this corner or that pathway.  The popcorn wagons have been replaced with these odd stationary structures, but the rest of my old haunts looked pretty much how I left them.

Popcorn!  It's as good as ever (but still not as good as mine).

Ice cream!  Check out that outdoor foods station behind me.  That's me ten years ago.

:(

• So much of it is the same (The Great Movie Ride, Tower of Terror, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Backlot Tour, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid shows), but there are lots of cool new things that make it a much more exciting park (Toy Story Mania, the upcoming Star Tours 2, and that which I describe next...).

I heart NYC.

Even though Star Tours 2 wasn't open yet, they still had the old Star Wars stuff around.

There was one guy on my other side who said my drawing of Eeyore was really good.  He even told the workers in the gift shop at the exit.

She loves that Mal.  But not so much the girl in Castle (which is why she's covered up).

Me at the Stone Table. (Worst move ever, dropping the Narnia franchise, Disney.  This could have been an awesome Dawn Treader update instead of a dated Caspian exhibit.  But I thought it was still cool.)

Julie loves the creatures.

I love the treats.

I volunteered for the Backlot Tour special effects show.  I was the comic relief.

(I'm the one on deck.)

Remember what I said about the bad boys?

It's a sickness.

I do not approve of the baddies!  Down with this White Witch!  (Though her costume is cool.)

Davey Jones once played this organ.  Or his tentacle beard did.

Here she is kissing the decapitated head of Boba Fett.

 

Walt.

Betty.  (What's the big deal with her anyway?)

Oprah.  I think Julie is asking her why she's so lame and has to buy all her friends.

Bill.  He makes me laugh, so I 'm laughing.  I love how he even has his sweater on.

This is Julie's tribute to Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts.

Gertie's is no more! :(

Glamorous Hollywood Wife!

Sleeping on the Tower of Terror.

• They have also in the last year or so opened their new American Idol Experience, in which guests can audition and hopefully go on to perform in live AI-styled shows, complete with host, judges and audience votes choosing a winner.  If you win, you perform in the finale show at the end of the day, and the winner of that round wins a "Golden Ticket," which allows them to jump to the front of the line at any city's audition for the real show in the upcoming seasons.  Of course, I'm a little too old to be on the actual show by now, but the WDW version allows a slightly wider age range to participate in the show, so I decided I really just better go for it.  There are a lot of pictures and video of this, so I think I'll post it separately.

• Fantasmic!  I missed it so, it's such a unique venue and such an exciting show.  I even bought a refreshment from those CP kids carrying their familiar trays of snacks.

Disney's Animal Kingdom!

• This park is so different from all the others, it was really fun to just explore it and find our way around its maze of paths and various activities.  There are a few shows that we saw (the new Finding Nemo musical--wow--The Festival of the Lion King, and of course It's Tough to Be a Bug), and some great rides (we loved the Kilimanjaro Safaris, Julie was BLOWN AWAY by Dinosaur, and we both immensely enjoyed the amazing Expedition Everest, which is new since I was there).

Dinosaurs?  Yes plz.

She was SO excited on the Dinosaur ride.

 

• It was fun to see a lot of creatures there too, even though some of them were kind of elusive.  The only day we had a little rain was at this park, but it was just fine, and cooled things down a little bit.

So there you go, the four parks!  There was so much to do and we did so much of it.  Here are a few general other things:

• We ate delicious foods.  There's a LOT of food to be had at WDW.  A lot of times we just grabbed something from the restaurant in the resort, or we ate in the parks.  We opted out of the dining plan, since we figured we wouldn't eat (rather, dine) enough to make it worth it, and we were right.  We ended up saving a lot of money that way.

Tie-dyed cheesecake.  We saw it advertised in the elevator and finally just had to try it.  It was, um, okay.

• We became well-acquainted with the transportation system, including shuttles (for which we waited at times for longer than an hour after park closing, I kid you not) and the Monorail.  It's interesting because at Disneyland the Monorail is more or less a ride, but at WDW it's a very crucial mode of transportation between parks and resorts.  Julie was thrilled to see the TRON-themed "TRONorail".

• We stayed at Pop Century, which was really cool, and had fun theming.  It was based on several decades of pop culture icons, and had a lot of dancing silhouettes, catch phrases along the railings, huge statues of Disney characters and three pools.  Thanks to our travel agent, we managed a really great deal.

Bowling pool!  It was right outside of our building.

So there you have it, Part I!  Harry Potter fans especially should look forward to Part II...  Stay tuned!